Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Introducing TrendsWatch 2016

TrendsWatch
2016 is now up on the web! You can download your free PDF copy from the
Alliance website. (Print copies will be available later this spring from the
AAM Bookstore.)

Here are the chapters in this year’s report:

Labor 3.0: new
jobs, or a jobless future?

More Than Human: extending
the spectrum of ability

Me/We/Here/There: museums
and the matrix of place-based augmented devices

Capture the Flag:
the struggle over representation and identity

Happiness: because
you get what you measure

This is the fifth edition of
TrendsWatch, and it was the most difficult one to write so far. As I struggled
over the draft I realized that for the first time the report has a unifying
theme, even if it’s one that’s not easy to state. The topics that emerged from
my scanning last year—the stories featured in CFM’s free weekly e-newsletter Dispatches from the Future of Museums, yet more stories I
bookmarked in Diigo, sessions at the annual meeting, buzz at conferences—all
revolve in some way around identity. What defines who I am? How does society
impose identity on me (or you), and who controls how that identity is
portrayed? How do I experience the world and empathize what it’s like for other
people? What is the basic meaning of being human? How have we mischaracterized
that in the past, and will it change in the future? Existential stuff for a
futurist, but grounded in an examination of five tangible trends.

I open the report with a chapter on
the future of labor—a broad look at all the ways that work and the workplace
are changing. I’ve been told that one defining difference between cultures is
whether and when you ask a stranger, “What do you do?” In the US (certainly in
Washington DC, where I am based) that question is a conversation starter—what
you do is seen as integral to who you are. Stay-at-home moms have long
struggled to answer in a way that rejects our culture’s devaluation
of unpaid labor—however much it contributes to our collective wellbeing.
And wellbeing (in the form of happiness) anchors the report at the other end.
Are jobs (and salary) really the most important things in the world? And if
happiness is more important than money, shouldn’t that be how we define and measure success?

Happiness starts with understanding
and accepting oneself, but it’s a lot easier to be happy if other people accept you as you are, too.
That being so, we are laying the groundwork for a happier future by starting to
question the boxes we force people into. Even more fundamentally, we are
beginning to question the reality of boxes themselves. A lot of attributes we
have long treated as clearly bounded categories—race, gender, sexual
orientation—are actually continuums. Chapter four of the report maps some of
the implications of recognizing the blurriness of boundaries: How do we create
buildings, communities and systems that accept that people fall along broad spectrums
in all sorts of ways?

Accepting others as they are
requires empathy, which is all too often in short supply. Therefore I’m
encouraged to learn that some of the hottest emerging technologies—those of
augmented and virtual realities—are described as “empathy machines” capable of
helping people feel they literally are walking a mile in another’s shoes. I
review some of the latest developments in AR and VR in chapter three.

Maybe with a little more
AR/VR-enhanced understanding of what it’s like to be the“other,” we wouldn’t have
designed so much of our environment to work for the “average” person. But we
did, and now we are confronting society’s role in the creation of disability through our architecture and our behavior.
As we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, we
are rapidly improving our ability to not only compensate for disability, but
correct for it. However, that acceleration only highlights the question: Who
gets to say that certain ways of being human ought to be “fixed”? A growing
number of disability rights movements are celebrating their distinct
identities—and rejecting such fixes. And with the development of evermore
sophisticated technologies that can augment our sensory, physical and cognitive
capabilities, we are entering a future in which we can not only compensate for
disabilities, but give people the choice of being “superabled.” How will such
augmentation disrupt our traditional hierarchies of ability and (to loop back
to chapter one) reshape labor?

Hand-in-hand with the question of
identity goes the question of representation. Who gets to control the story of
individuals and groups? As with disability/ability, this conversation is also
about deconstructing traditional power structures—even though it’s unclear what
the new structures will be. People are demanding to see themselves in their
public institutions, but those institutions are besieged by competing claims.
Who has standing to speak on behalf of a community? Given our increased
recognition of the complexity of identity, who gets to say who does or does not
even belong to a given group? Objects, as powerful symbols representing people
and culture and history, are at the center of this struggle. And that means
museums, as caretakers and interpreters of objects, are deeply enmeshed as
well.

So—identity, representation,
control, the deconstruction of categories, revisiting who we are and who we
want to be. I told you it’s a complicated theme: big and messy and important.
More than once as I started yet another round of revisions (with much input
from my wonderful commenters), I doubted my qualifications to tackle these
issues at all. But I decided these topics are too important to give them a
pass. Knowing how widely TrendsWatch
is used with museum staff, boards and museum studies programs, I feel obligated
to put precisely these hard, important questions on the table. Where I get it
wrong, I am sure that you, or others, will get it right. And I look forward to
hearing what you have to say.

To that end, throughout the coming year
Sylvea and I will be soliciting guest posts for the CFM Blog that illustrate how
museums are navigating these trends. Indeed, we’ve already begun, by hosting
essays by a number of the folk I talked to as this edition took shape. For
example, in past few months:

Ruth Quinn blogged about the Happy
Museum Project, which challenges museums to use their position in society
to promote well-being, sustainability and resilience,

Alistair Brown of the Museums
Association provided an update on museum
labor issues in the UK, including the living wage movement,

So, if you have a story to share
about how these trends are playing out in your museum and your community, I
encourage you to email Sylvea with your idea for a post (you can find the guestpost guidelines here).

Finally, please join me in thanking
the donors and sponsors who make it possible for AAM to create and distribute
this report as a free digital publication. TrendsWatch
2015 was downloaded over 4700 times—that kind of reach helps build a
communal dialog in the field on important issues. Our lead sponsors this year
are Aon, Blackbaud, Huntington T. Block, PGAV Destinations and Shultz &
Williams. Additional support was provided by Amy Bartow-Melia and Greg Melia,
Mary Case @ Qm2, History Associates, Inc. and Lisa Yun Lee. Also pitching in:
Deirdre Araujo, Christine Bean, Peter Bishop, Barbara George, Eileen G.
Goldspiel, Benjamin Gonzales, Eugene Kuo, Jane MacKnight, Jessica Marten,
Patricia Rodewald, Philip Santore, Chris Siefert, Chris Wohlwill, and at least
one person who would like to remain anonymous (you know who you are!) If you
would like to contribute to our next effort, your contribution of any size
would be much appreciated. There is a section on the TrendsWatch 2016 download page where you can make a gift.

Now—go, download, read, share,
cogitate, comment…and think how you will navigate these trends in a way that
will build a better future for your museum and your community.